Not just athletes in hot water for Twitter messages at Olympics

So far at the London Olympics, two athletes have been sent home for tweets considered racist, a boy was arrested for a "malicious" tweet about a British diver and a reporter had his Twitter account cancelled for criticizing NBC coverage of the games.

The Telegraph says the recent uproar at the games over messages posted on Twitter has people wondering what is and isn't allowed on the site.

British Journalist Guy Adams has had his Twitter account shut down for criticizing NBC's coverage of the games, after he posted the email address of Gary Zenkel, President of NBC Olympics. Digital Journal reports that a teen has been arrested for his tweet about diver Tom Daley letting down his father who recently passed away and threatening to drown Daley in a swimming pool over his performance at the games. We also told you about Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella being sent home yesterday for a racist tweet about the South Korean soccer team. And even before the games began, Greek triple jumper Voula Papachristou was sent packing for a tweet considered racist, that she says was an "unfortunate and tasteless joke".

The IOC says it wants athletes to use social media to stay in touch with fans but set up a code of conduct that it seems some athletes chose to ignore.

British Independent newspaper journalist Adams says he had no idea his tweets could get him in trouble. The National Post says the LA correspondent was furious when NBC decided to delay showing the Opening Ceremonies live, until prime-time. He says he tweeted, “I have 1000 channels on my TV. Not one will be showing the Olympics opening ceremony live, because NBC are utter, utter bastards.” He says he also pointed out some factual errors the NBC commentators made during the broadcast.

Adams says he checked his Twitter account later, but “when I logged on, I was presented with a message saying it had been 'suspended.' If I had any questions, I was asked to click on a link and fill in an online form.”

NBC says it simply reported Adams to the social networking site. “We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline.” Adam denies he tweeted any personal information about the exec, only his corporate email address, which he writes about in an article for The Independent.

Journalists have jumped to Adams defence, where else but on Twitter, criticizing the site for its decision. Many are using the hash tag #nbcfail.

Twitter has a full set of rules of what is and what isn't allowed on the site; don't impersonate someone else, don't publish someone else's personal and confidential information, do not post any threats of violence and you must abide by copywrites and trademarks and of course no spam or malware. The bottom line: "Twitter reserves the right to immediately terminate your account without further notice in the event that, in its judgment, you violate these Rules or the Terms of Service."